The Reason for Mike Trout's Early-Season Struggles

The Angels' superstar center fielder is off to a slow start in 2016, but why?

I don't know if you've heard, but
Bryce Harper is off to kind of a hot start here in 2016. And this is following a 2015 season in which he led baseball in pretty much every offensive category known to man. Yet, for many including myself, Mike Trout was still considered to be the best overall player in baseball coming into this season.

And it was easy to see why.

While Harper has always been good, Trout had been a 10-win player twice and had won an MVP award (he should have four, probably).

Both players came into the league in 2012, and here are their totals through last year.

Player

HR

RBI

SB

OPS

wRC+

fWAR

Mike Trout

134

381

109

.970

170.5

37.8

Bryce Harper

97

248

37

.902

142.5

19.5

Trout had obviously been the more dominant -- and healthier -- player during those four years. But then, things changed in 2015.

Player

HR

RBI

Runs

SB

OPS

wRC+

fWAR

Mike Trout

41

90

104

11

.991

172

9.0

Bryce Harper

42

99

118

6

1.109

197

9.5

And while Harper appears to have gotten even better this season, with an OPS of 1.295, a wRC+ of 222, 7 homers, and 20 RBI, Trout has struggled badly, just 11-for-50 with a .220 batting average, a .333 on-base percentage and a .673 OPS.

Trout has just one long ball so far, with 4 RBI and 6 runs scored, giving him a wRC+ of 100, which is league average.

There's no doubt that, right now, Harper is a better player. But it's still early, and it's certainly possible Trout can regain that crown, but he will have to reverse a few trends that have gone in the wrong direction here in 2016.

Year

GB/FB

LD%

GB%

FB%

Pull%

Cent%

Oppo%

Soft%

Hard%

2016

1.88

34.3

42.9

22.9

48.6

25.7

25.7

31.4

28.6

Career

1.03

22.4

39.3

38.3

34.9

36.0

29.1

14.1

36.6

In the chart above, a few things stand out from Trout's batted ball data.

His ground-ball-to-fly-ball ratio is backwards. Usually, it's been a pretty even distribution, but this year, he's hitting more balls on the ground. He's also hitting more line drives, at the expense of fly balls.

Normally, this would be a good thing, but when you look at his hard hit versus soft hit percentages, you see he's never generated such weak contact at the plate as he has this year.

Why is this? There appear to be a couple different reasons why he's making weaker contact at the plate.

Year

Fastball %

Cutter %

Slider %

Curve %

Changeup %

2016

28.2

8.2

16.1

9.3

10.4

Career

40.0

5.5

14.7

7.4

7.4

Simply put, he's seeing fewer fastballs this year.

Just 28.2% of pitches he's seen have been four-seam fastballs, leading to him seeing more breaking pitches.

Teams have also changed where they're pitching Trout in the strike zone.